New balance changes are arriving this week with the launch of the Whizbang's Workshop mini-set. The patch has two card changes that are being done sooner than expected to help with cards that are outliers. More balance changes are coming in the next scheduled balance patch "a little after this patch" according to Blizzard. Read on for the changes.
- Deepminer Brann now costs 8 Mana (Up from 6)
- Saddle Up! now costs 4 Mana (Up from 3)
These changes will be live in tomorrow's 29.4.0 game update with the launch of the mini-set.
Quote From Blizzard Dev Comment: Our last balance update was a massive shakeup with over 35 changes, based on our general design philosophy and overall health of Standard. With so many changes at once, we built this extra balance window into this content patch to catch a couple power and playrate outliers that have cropped up since those changes. We still have our regular hotfix balance window planned for a little after this patch, once players have had a chance to play with the new mini-set cards and explore the new meta.
Deepminer Brann
- Old: [6 Mana]
- New: [8 Mana]
Saddle Up!
- Old: [3 Mana]
- New: [4 Mana]
Comments
I think both of these nerfs are fantastic, particularly Brann. They nerfed the whole Highlander package so that Warriors couldn't "cheat" the effect by hyper-drawing through their deck, and it made almost no differance at all. They have so many tools at their disposal, they just went full Highlander and are still performing well. Even Boomboss Thogrun is still powerful with his nerfed effect.
Hunters are definitely a bit too fast right now if they get a good early game. The combination of lots of cheap beasts plus Jungle Gym is a bit too much. I think other pieces of that deck might need toning down as well.
I'd like to see some more Paladin nerfs, too. They just have way too many answers to just about every scenario. Very frustrating to play against.
It's funny to me that the Control Warrior shell is so sturdy that the most efficacious way to mess with it is to hit its win condition (first Odyn, now this).
I genuinely don't know which approach is better now between Odyn at 9 and Brann at 8. They're similar deals in that you're sacrificing an entire late-game turn. 9 mana is really a lot. The body is bigger, which matters but isn't decisive. Brann lets you run Reno, which is stupid amazing, at the cost of going Highlander. That might be deciding factor, given how spectacular Reno is for a control deck.
Regardless, the big loser is Sludge Warlock, which is having a rough time overall but could still climb by dominating the warrior matchup. If there are fewer warriors, then Sludge Warlock's matchup spread looks pretty bleak.
Maybe Odyn should be nerfed to granting attack only with a WEAPON equipped.